The Best Room in the House

TVs, chandeliers and no clutter—
two local closets are a clothes horse’s dream

By Chris Warren

Kevin Geil

Misty Paddack faces a dilemma to which few of us can relate. As she ponders how to decorate her three-bedroom home in the Oaks of Vista del Norte, Paddack takes her time going through photos and memorabilia. She is well traveled, close to her family and has a wide array of interests, so it’s no easy feat deciding what items are, in her words, “closet worthy.”

No, that’s not a misprint. Far from being a place to simply stuff boxes among a wardrobe or forget items she doesn’t use everyday, Paddack’s newly refurbished closet is kind of a place of honor. “I spent a lot of time with this,” she says of her decision of what to showcase. Photos of her parents and sister, as well as with her boyfriend, Ed, at the leaning Tower of Pisa, plus snow globes from New York, San Francisco and Austin, have all earned a place of distinction.

Paddack’s closet is not the dark, jumbled repository of clothes, shoes, hats, toys and other random items (hidden Christmas presents from two years ago, anybody?) that so many of us contend with each day—just the sort of place we want to get into and out of as fast as humanly possible. By contrast, Paddack says strolling from her master bedroom into her closet consistently elicits a “wow” as she looks around and sees the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling or flips on the LED recessed lighting and examines the crown molding or enjoys the sunlight streaming in through a window. It’s so pleasant, in fact, that she’ll often turn on the TV and do her ironing here. “Or sometimes,” she says. “I’m in here just looking at it.”

To be clear, Paddack hasn’t always had this sort of attachment to her closet. Not long ago, her closet was well organized, but pedestrian and just a fraction of its current size. When her boyfriend moved in the couple decided to make space for him by expanding the existing master closet into an adjacent bedroom. “We decided to knock a doorway through the current closet to make a super closet,” she says. To be fair, the idea to expand the closet and transform it into a place where someone would actually want to linger was a collaborative effort. After attending the Parade of Homes and seeing some of the closets showcased in the new houses, she called California Closets, a company that specializes in redesigning and re-imagining closets. There, she connected with Misty Rodriguez, a self-described “functionality enthusiast.” She walked Paddack through a process meant to tease out a design that fit her style.

As part of that, Rodriguez visited Paddack’s home to get a better idea of her personality and style. “I always look around at the furniture pieces they’ve chosen,” she says. “When people move into a house, not everything is their style, but furniture is unique to them.” Once she had a flavor for Paddack’s taste, the two worked together to try out different amenities and features with a software design program that allowed them to see exactly how the closet would look with different colors, shelf arrangements and configurations. “It gives you an idea of what you would get instead of going ahead and doing it and having it be a surprise,” says Rodriguez.

A somewhat similar process unfolded for Alison and John Rivenburgh, who own and live on the property of the Bending Branch Winery in Comfort. What was somewhat different, though, is that the Rivenburghs freely admit they had no idea what kind of closet they wanted and left most of the decisions to Joann Wilmeth of California Closets. “We came in there and had no idea and knew we wanted a full closet and she walked us through everything,” says Alison. Like her colleague Misty Rodriguez, Wilmeth also begins each job not by focusing at all on the space she has to work with, but rather by getting to know her new clients. “Once I meet a client and get invited into their home, I pay close attention to their furnishings and style and then get to know them personality-wise because that helps me in directing me as far as the design goes,” she says.

What Wilmeth and the Rivenburghs had to work with was an interesting house. The original section of the home was built as a 10-by-10-foot log cabin in the 1840s. Through the years additions were made, including concrete rooms around 1900 and a second story in 2007. What was lacking in all of these modifications, says Alison, was a well-organized, contemporary style closet. “The house blends rustic and contemporary together, and we wanted a more modern look in the closet,” she says. “Joann did a good job of that.”

Wilmeth was able to incorporate the couple’s taste with a look that would fit the home. “I knew that clean lines would be important and that we wouldn’t be adding things like crown moldings,” she says. “It was all about keeping the charm of the house but adding a contemporary flair.”

The Rivenburghs are especially keen on the functionality of the space. Alison likes that her shoe racks are configured so that she can see them all at once without having to dig for the ones she wants. She also loves the specific sections designated for work, casual and long sleeve clothes. With cool wood finishes and newly built cabinets as well as an added light fixture, it’s also a place she likes to spend time.

“Everything is visual, nothing is hidden and it’s easy to find things. It’s really a dream closet,” she says. “We call it our Sex in the City closet.”